We Shall Undercome: Tech Firms Refuse Gov’t Invite
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Written By Reprise Media | January 30, 2006 | Share This
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The Congressional Human Rights Caucus is holding a Feb. 1 briefing over tech firms’ collusion with Chinese censorship - we had a bit about Google’s recent trouble here. But according to this AFP story, while watchdog groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International will attend, Microsoft and Cisco seem to be washing their hair that day, and Google and Yahoo! haven’t RSVP’d.
Google is taking heat over its controversial decision to self-censor Chinese search results containing “sensitive information” (Bambi Francisco at MarketWatch has a critical look); Search Engine Watch has side-by-side screen shots of what Chinese and non-Chinese users can expect to see after an image search for “Tinanmen Square” - let’s just say the Chinese version is a bit rosier. But charges levelled at some other companies are even more serious: Yahoo! and Cisco are both alleged to have helped track down dissenters and others the Chinese government would like to silence. T. Kumar, Amnesty’s advocacy director for Asia, scorches them:
“It is a sham that the American Internet firms are refusing to be accountable to US Congress and at the same time working hand in glove with the Chinese authorities.”
As for Google, their explanation is that censored Google is better for the Chinese people than no Google at all, and Bill Gates has Google’s back.
But Google is also in dutch with Uncle Sam over its refusal to provide search query information to the Department of Justice. And while co-founder Sergey Brin says in this Bloomberg story that Google is trying to protect users’ privacy, industry experts in this New York Times story say that’s mainly baloney. Even Google lawyer Ashok Ramani said back in October that Google’s reluctance stems from fear that handing over the info could “endanger its crown-jewel trade secrets.”
Steve Rubel has an interesting piece predicting that the government will try to knock Google down a peg or two in the near future, but a more immediate problem for the search giant could be that they’re breaking loyal users’ hearts. Ivan Fallon writes in The Independent that Google’s “week from hell,” particularly the China episode, is damaging the company’s rep as a paragon of integrity in the online world.
Topics: Legal Issues |